Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The Inevitable

So... I'm going to Darfur. Tomorrow.

It's impossible to try to cover this country without knowing and seeing for yourself what Darfur is all about. From Khartoum, it's really impossible to know. For the past two weeks, rebels have said that areas under their control were bombed and attacked by the govt. When you ask the government, it says, 'we're not attacking rebels. We're just clearing the roads of bandits so that humanitarian workers can have better access.' Of course, no one believes that, but how can anyone be sure what is happening?
Even going there won't give that many answers. It's hard to get access to any of the areas where fighting actually takes place, as they are all far from the state capitals and you need permission to travel to them (which the govt does not give easily).
I'm more nervous than I thought I would be, because so little is prepared, so few interviews are lined up, etc. etc. But this seems to be the way I function here, unfortunately - unorganized.
I should be sleeping now, but as usual, my body is doing that "I'm nervous, so I won't let you sleep thing". So I've turned on some "Entourage" TV shows that Osama put onto my computer in Egypt. Hopefully the expensive cars and famous actors will bore me to sleep...

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